Trump warns of ‘big sanctions’ if Iraq forces US troops out

US president Donald Trump warned Iraq that it could face “very big sanctions” if it forces US troops to leave the country, as the fallout from last week’s killing of a top Iranian official reverberated across the Middle East.

His comments on Air Force One to reporters on Sunday evening as he travelled back to Washington from his home in Mar-a-Lago come amid deepening tensions between the US and Iraq following the killing of Iranian commander Quassem Suleimani by a US drone at Baghdad International Airport on Friday.

On Sunday the Iraqi parliament voted to expel US troops from the country, amid growing unease in Iraq about the attack which is seen by many as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi proposed the resolution to end all foreign troop presence in Iraq – signaling a growing backlash in the country against Friday’s US drone strike in Baghdad Airport which killed Suleimani and a commander of an Iranian-allied militia group.

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However, the legislation has not yet been signed into law and was opposed by dozens of Kurdish and Sunni representatives in parliament.

Military presence

On Sunday, Mr Trump warned Iraq against forcing-out the US, which has had a military presence there since the 2003 invasion.

“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever,” Mr Trump said. “It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

He also said that Iraq would have to compensate the US for an air base there. “We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there,” he said. “It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.”

He also repeated threats he made in a tweet that the US could target Iranian cultural sites. “They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

His comments come among heighted tensions in the region.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Iraq and Iran over the weekend to mourn the killing of Suleimani in the US drone attack.

On Sunday, Iran announced it was rolling back its remaining commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal. While the state will continue to cooperate with the International Atomic Agency, its refusal to comply with uranium enrichment levels may bring it closer to producing a nuclear bomb.

As tensions remained high, one US serviceman and two Department of Defense contractors were killed in an attack on a US base in Kenya. Rockets were also fired in the Green Zone area of Baghdad near the US embassy, though no casualties were reported.

The US president escalated his rhetoric over the weekend warning that the US could strike 52 Iranian sites “very fast and very hard” if provoked.

Warning

“Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD,” he tweeted from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. “The USA wants no more threats.”

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo defended the president’s comments, stating that America will behave “lawfully.”

“We always have, and we always will,” he said. Noting that past US administration had allowed Shia militias to “take shots at us,” he said Mr Trump was taking a different approach.

“We’ve told the Iranian regime, enough. You can’t get away with using proxy forces and think your homeland will be safe and secure. We’re going to respond against the actual decision makers. The people who are causing this threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Suleimani’s body was flown back to Iran on Sunday, and the state is preparing for several days of mourning in different sites across the Middle East, culminating in a burial in the general’s home town of Kerman on Tuesday. Televised footage showed members of Iran’s parliament chanting “Death to America!” in the chamber on Sunday.